When acquiring acoustic data with an ultrasound imaging apparatus, the operator may occasionally wish to save certain data for analysis. However, the volume of data is high--there may be more than thirty frames per second--and the storage requirements per frame, being that the data are acoustic, are also quite high. Typically, the operator will acquire several ultrasound images, conduct measurements of the data from one or two particular images, update a report, and then move on to the next region of clinical interest.
This is a cyclical process. If the storage and analysis operation is repeated continuously, the examination process will be prolonged and the patient will be inconvenienced, having to wait until each frame has been analyzed before being released.
It would be desirable to provide some way of capturing acoustic data in variable-size operator-selected portions, allowing all of the required images to be collected prior to their analysis. This would allow the examiner to focus exclusively on data acquired and limit the amount of required patient time.